The elevator opens and he waits for me to enter, and I do. With fast steps, I rush inside and whirl around to confront him. He stalks forward, and this time he doesn’t avoid looking at me, his expression etched with pure determination and some raw, dark emotion I cannot fully name. I don’t get the chance to try.

Before a word is out of my mouth, and I have many intended, the bags he’s holding hit the floor and Chris has pressed me back against the wall. My purse tumbles from my arm and his powerful thighs encase mine; his hips mold my hips. I gasp with the rough tangle of his fingers in my hair and the blaze of his eyes as they capture mine. I am angry with him. I am aroused. And when his mouth claims my mouth, his tongue slicing past my lips with a delicious lick followed by another, demanding my response, I am at his mercy. My fingers curl around his t-shirt and I push away the tiny space between us, molding myself against him. He owns me and, considering how the past thirty minutes have gone, this terrifies me, but I’m all in with Chris. I decided that long before Paris. I am his to command, moaning with the taste of him, sultry and male, on my tongue.

His hand sweeps up my side, fingers flexing over my ribs, palm covering my breast. My nipple tightens in anticipation of the tug that follows and I moan, my need to touch Chris almost unbearable. I reach for his shirt, intending to push beneath, but he doesn’t let me.

Chris’s fingers close around my wrist and I know he is in that dark place, where he doesn’t let me touch him—but I am in a dark place, too, on edge, ripe with my anger and unwilling to be submissive to him. Challenging his silent message of control, I reach for his shirt with my free hand and he shackles my wrist as well and tears his mouth from mine. Our eyes lock, the sound of our heavy breathing filling the air and the motion of the elevator I didn’t even know was moving swaying our bodies. The floor vibrates slightly beneath our feet and I sense, rather than see, the doors behind Chris slide open, but still we stand there, still we stare at each other.

“They don’t get to tell you who I am,” he says. His voice is a rough growl, low and tight. “I do. I tell you and I show you so you get the truth, not their fabrication of it.” A muscle in his jaw flexes. “Understand?”

My anger and fear dissolve instantly. He’s not pulling away from me. He’s angry that Amber and Tristan might taint my view of him when he’s already convinced I’ll hate him before this discovery process is over.
“Do you understand?” he demands when I apparently don’t answer fast enough.

This time I don’t fight the bark of his order, understanding the desperateness beneath its surface. “Yes. Yes. Chris, I—”

His fingers tangle in my hair again, tugging my head back in that deliciously rough way he does. Dark Chris calls to me and I no longer fight answering. “Do not go there without me again.” His voice is gravelly; raw like the emotion I’ve seen in his face and tasted on his lips.

“Me going there wasn’t what you think it was, Chris.”

His eyes flash with disapproval. He is not pleased, or accepting, of what I’ve said, and his mouth closes down on mine, punishing, controlling. His tongue thrusting and tasting, before he repeats his words, his fingers stroking my breasts, teasing my nipple. “Do not go there again without me, Sara.”

“I won’t.” The words come out a hoarse groan as his hand strokes a path up and down my side, and back over my breast. His touch is heavy, the air thick, and I’m certain he isn’t convinced. “I won’t go back without you.”
His fingers curl around my neck and he stares down at me, searching my face with such intensity it feels as if he’s seeing straight to my soul. And I welcome the invasion. I welcome him. Seconds tick by, and I have no idea what he sees or doesn’t see in me, but he drags my mouth to his and kisses me.

The silky hot stroke of his tongue is a shot of adrenaline and desire that spikes through my body and creates a tingling sensation from head to toe. I shudder with pleasure and drink him in, tasting the bittersweet hunger in him, the anger and torment. I burn to touch him beyond where my fingers rest on his chest, to feel hard muscle flex beneath my fingers. But control is his outlet of choice when there is no whip, no pain. And I am no longer angry, no longer rebelling against his demands. No longer fighting his need for an outlet I have long ached for him to know he has with me, in me.

I tremble with the caress of his hand over my waist, traveling to my hip, and curving around my backside to firmly pull me hard against his thick erection. His palm skims upward to the small of my back, and flattens, molding me even closer. I moan into his mouth and he groans in response, his tongue delving deeply, hot with growing demand, with a palpable urgency. And his hands are everywhere, touching me, stroking me, caressing me, driving me wild and, before I know what’s happening, he’s shoving my jeans down my legs. I blink and my boots are gone and I’m half-naked in an elevator with the doors locked open.
I might have protested our location, asked to move to another room, but Chris turns me to the wall and his hands slide, slow and firm, possessively down my waist and over my hips. Feeling his gaze rake over my body, I am wet and weak in the knees.

He cups my cheeks from behind and steps forward, pressing his lips to my ear. “Tonight, I want to spank you, but I won’t. Not when it would be punishment. I won’t ever do that to you. But don’t think that means I won’t want to.”

I understand Chris. I don’t know how or why but, deep in our souls, we connect, and I know what he is doing. He’s showing me a hard exterior but all I see is vulnerability, a need that tonight has sparked, to show me a darker, more dangerous side of himself, and have me not run for cover. “You can’t scare me away, Chris. So throw all the words you want at me. I’m still here. I’m still not going anywhere. And in case you forgot, I liked it when you spanked me.”

His hand finds my stomach and then presses deeper between my legs, until his fingers tease my clit. “Maybe this time I’ll tie you up and flog you.”

“Do it.” His fingers stroke into the silky wet V of my body, and I am panting, barely able to speak, but I swallow and somehow finish my challenge. “The more you push me, the more I push back, Chris.”

He nips my earlobe and I can feel him unzipping his pants. “So you say,” he murmurs.

“So I know.” Throwing caution to the wind, I press onward, trying to unleash the pent-up energy in him he bottles until it later explodes. “Only one of us is running. Only one of us is afraid of what I have yet to discover, Chris.”

The air crackles and his hand goes to my waist, fingers flexing into my flesh, and I revel in the certainty I’ve succeeded in taking him to the edge. “You think I’m running?” he demands.

“No. I think you’re trying to make me run so you can blame me if we fail.”

His cock presses between my legs. “Does that feel like I want you to run?” He enters me, driving hard inside me without any prelude. “Does that?” And then he is thrusting, reaching around me to meld his hand to my breast, holding onto it, and me. He thrusts again, burying himself, with a fieriness that outreaches pure physical need. Oh yes, I have made him angry and I am glad. I want this side of him, I want all of him. And damn it, he just keeps trying to deny me. He keeps trying to hold back and, yes, he keeps trying to make me run.

I press my hand to his hand where it’s melded to my breast, teasing me, holding him there, holding on and not planning to ever let go. Pleasure splinters through me with each thrust of his cock, each moment he’s buried deep inside me. Sensation after sensation begins in my sex and rushes through nerve endings. I am lost in how he feels, how I feel, and I arch into him, my muscles clench around him, and then I cannot breathe. My orgasm takes me by surprise, enveloping me, consuming me. I rise to the top of it far too quickly and come down far too hard and fast, but just in time to feel Chris shudder, his body tensing with his release. He stills, burying his face in my neck, and his body slowly relaxes. For several moments he holds me there, and I’m not sure either of us breathes, let alone speaks or moves. I am not sure what to say or what to do next.

Abruptly, he pulls out of me, and I don’t know why, but an unusual sense of complete, utter emptiness washes over me. The “why” is answered when I start to turn to find him already headed out of the elevator. I stare after him, knots balling in my stomach. Maybe I pushed the wrong buttons. Maybe I pushed him to far or too hard. Maybe I made a mistake.

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones is the author of the highly acclaimed INSIDE OUT TRILOGY which has sold to more than ten countries for translation with negotiations in process for more, and has now been optioned by STARZ Network for a cable television show, to be produced by Suzanne Todd (Alice in Wonderland).

Since beginning her publishing career in 2007, Lisa has published more than 30 books with publishers such as Simon and Schuster, Avon, Kensington, Harlequin, NAL, Berkley and Elloras Cave, as well as crafting a successful indie career. Booklist says that Jones suspense truly sizzles with an energy similar to FBI tales with a paranormal twist by Julie Garwood or Suzanne Brockmann.

Prior to publishing, Lisa owned multi-state staffing agency that was recognized many times by The Austin Business Journal and also praised by Dallas Women Magazine. In 1998 LRJ was listed as the #7 growing women owned business in Entrepreneur Magazine.

Lisa loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her at www.lisareneejones.com and she is active on twitter and facebook daily.

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